Sex scandal

The Australian military was embroiled in another sex scandal yesterday, with 17 personnel including officers under investigation after "explicit and repugnant" e-mails and images demeaning female personnel were uncovered.

A Singaporean law professor was found guilty of corruption on Tuesday after a judge ruled that he abused his position to obtain sexual favours and gifts from a female student in exchange for good grades.

A Swiss former banker was yesterday found guilty of having sex with an under-age Singaporean prostitute in a case that caused a scandal as it involved several prominent men in the city state. Juerg Buergin, 41, was found guilty by a district court of two charges of having sex with a 17-year-old call girl and will be sentenced next Wednesday.

It was a typical British tabloid splash - the news that the entertainer Rolf Harris was arrested on suspicion of sex offences - but the headline emblazoned across The Sun's front page on Friday was also a pre-emptive strike in a fresh freedom-of-speech battle between newspapers and lawyers to the famous and powerful.

When Guangxi officials last year reportedly blurred their mug shots on government websites to prevent blackmailers from using them in fake sex photos, internet users had a good laugh. But a recent police crackdown on extortion gangs in Hunan province proved these officials had prophetic vision.

Singapore's former civil defence chief, accused by prosecutors of trading contracts for sex, did not influence the awarding of business, his lawyer said. Peter Lim, accused of obtaining oral sex in a car park in May 2010 from the general manager of Nimrod Engineering, is not corrupt, his lawyer Hamidul Haq said at the start of his trial.

A string of sex scandals has brought down a number of Chinese officials recently. Such is the technology today that the photos, videos and salacious details about the affairs spread quickly once they are posted online. The authorities were quick to react, sacking a number of senior party cadres and executives at state-owned companies. There's probably more to come.

A Marxist theoretician has been removed as head of an important, but obscure Communist Party research institute over a sex scandal as China’s new leadership moves to end the latest, embarrassing revelation of high-level sleaze.

ound 50 victims of sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile are set to seek damages from the late broadcaster’s estate and from organisations including the BBC and Britain’s health service, their lawyer said on Saturday.